Homeschool Day at the Florida Museum

Today was homeschool day at the Florida Natural History Museum in Gainesville. We got there nice and early, about 20 min ahead of the 10 oclock entry time. The line was not that large at that time. Yet, it still took almost an hour to get a ticket purchased. I was not super happy about that. I would think they could have done better than that. The exhibit itself was interesting, but in my opinion not worth 6 dollars a person. Then the various activity stations were mostly for very young children. We did get to look at shark skin under a microscope, at one station, and the kids did a fishing test that taught them using nets for fish gets you way more than you wanted, or expected. The rest of the museum, except the Butterfly Rainforest is free, but our time was limited, and we had already seen it. We were able to identify two types of shark teeth, that we had collected while fossil digging.  A Tiger Shark and Lemon Shark.  All in all I was disappointed. Not sure I would go for another Homeschool Day.

Fossil Digging Field Trip #2 and What We Do With Them

Today we went digging for fossils, for the second time. Last time was in November, and the water was cold then, but let me tell you that was nothing compared to today. It was 40 degrees when we left the house this morning, and that water was bone chilling cold. However, it is a fairly shallow creek and we found a nice sunny spot, where the water was at least bearable.  Plus it has been such a wet winter, I was hoping it would have stirred up lots of good stuff.  Boy did it, and we only kept some of it.  I always find tons of shells, but since they are all the same I only took a couple.  Last time I only found one shark tooth, that was not very big at all.  I found some nice size ones this time, but my son and our friend found two huge shark teeth.  I mean huge.  Also of interest was manta ray jaw bones, some white rocks with blue spots I found some of those last time too, petrified wood, and a rock that actually had a shark tooth fossil embedded in it with other fossils too. 

So, now what do we do with these?  I use them for various crafts, three of which you can see below.  My kids have not attempted the resin craft yet, but they will be doing it in April.  Resin does have some safety issues that you have to follow, so I know some people use Modge Podge.  I have never tried the Modge Podge method.  I myself, am fairly new to resin, but I love it.  You can go to my other blog, http://www.melissasjewelryandgems.blogspot.com to see all my resin, art, and crochet craftiness. 

The kids can also read about fossils, why are there so many fossils in Florida, and the laws on collecting fossils.  There are very strict laws on fossil digging, not really the digging, but the keeping of the fossils.  Also what makes Petrified Wood.    This is a fun way to learn some cool Science, and enjoy nature.  We will definitely probably go back again.  The little area where we dig is so beautiful and peaceful.  The blue piece below is actually resin with blue food coloring and a shark tooth in it.  It is really cool.  It will be in my Etsy store soon, as my son found a bigger one today and will be making a piece of his own with resin.  The clear piece has a shell, that stone I told you about, and part of a shark tooth I think.  The top piece I used one of the shells I found, put a little hot glue in there and a coral flower then poured the resin in.  It will be a pendant eventually.  All of these were made from our first time digging.

Digging For Fossils at Alfred A Ring Park

On Friday our Earth Kids group went digging for fossils at Alfred A Ring Park in Gainesville. The kids of course love all the field trips we get to do, but this one was especially neat. Florida used to not be a land mass, it was under the ocean. Then millions of years ago, when whatever happened, happened, Florida rose out of the ocean to become a peninsula. All the sea creatures that had died and been buried at sea, now can be found by digging for them in several fossil digging areas in Florida. There are very strict rules for digging for fossils. The most important being if it is state owned water, you can not keep vertebrates other than shark teeth, and you can not keep human artifacts such as pottery or flints. Hogtown Creek is not state owned water, so we didn't have to worry about that. We did not find an plant fossils, at least I didn't. The kids were mostly seeking shark teeth so they might have put them back. I found lots of shells, and one big shark tooth. I found a ton of manta ray teeth or jaw bone, since they don't really have teeth. I had one jaw bone that fell apart before I got it home or got a picture of it. I found some really neat rocks as well. The two that I liked the most, was a white one with blue specks, kind of looks like Medusa Quartz if anyone is familiar with that, and the other was mostly blue with tiny white specks on it. Alfred A Park is a lovely little park, with picnic area, small playground, clean bathroom facilities and hiking trails. I believe we will be going back just to hike in the near future. I have other pics, but on the other computer. This was a most enjoyable field trip, and the weather was perfect. We have collected shells from other trips as well.  When we get enough and the time we will be doing various crafts with them, including wind chimes and jewelry.

Angler Fish Upcycled Bird Feeder and Sandwiches

So, we made the bird feeders using recycled milk jugs. We were supposed to do four but one jug got forgotten at home. If you don't know what an Angler Fish looks like, they are a hideous scary fish that live in the deepest darkest depths of the ocean. They have a lure on the top of their head that glows to attract prey. So we took milk jugs, cleaned and dried them of course, and cut a really big mouth opening. Angler Fish have large appearing mouths with long sharp teeth. Since we wanted birds, or squirrels to come and eat from the feeder we opted to leave off the long spiky teeth. We did cut the top of the mouth with scissors in strips and colored them in black to appear to be sharp teeth. They spray painted the jugs with yellow or green spray paint. Then after they dried, they added googly eyes, the lure which is just a pipe cleaner and a puff ball glued to the end of it. The lure is held in place by cutting a small slit in the back of the jug sticking in the pipe cleaner and then bending it over to hold it in place. DJ added a goatee to his, but since he was in the shade you can't really see his very well. I forgot the worksheets I had printed out, but thankfully DJ is well aware of the Angler Fish and was able to lead the class without them. Due to the holiday in November, our next meeting is in two weeks, and we will be going on a fossil hunt. There are very specific rules for this, and I will share them in a future post.  Oh I almost forgot the sandwiches.  I used a biscuit cutter to make them round, added the chicken salad, then made the lure with a pepper and olive.  An olive makes the eye.  I tried to use shredded cheese to make teeth but it was the fine shredded rather than the thicker shredded cheese so it wouldn't work.

Easy Digestive Discoveries Health Experiment

We were supposed to do this on Thursday, and I completely forgot it. So, we did it last night. This is easy, and it could be used for Health class to explain digestion, or for a Science experiment. I am going to tell you how to do it. What you need: small piece of cooked lean beef, bottle with a screw top, dark cola. Place the beef in the bottle. Pour cola into the bottle. Screw on the lid, to seal the cola, and meat. Observe the cola, and meat for one week. Do not open the bottle during this time. Then discuss the following questions. Do you think that meat is easy to digest? What other foods might be easier for your body to digest? With what other foods could you do this experiment.

Here are some basics about the digestion process. Your digestive system works to break down foods you eat. While you chew, and swallow foods, different acids in your saliva, and stomach work to break down the foods. Acids break down protein that is found in meat. The experiment above will allow you to observe how the meat you eat, is broken down, or digested.

Let me know if you do this, and how your kids liked it. To view the cute video on digestion, check my archives from last week.

Lesson Plans for 10/13/09:

DJ:
Science: Plants and animals of the past
Language Arts: Commas, prefixes, homographs
Spelling/Vocab: Look up the definition for each word, write each word two times each
Math: Division, place value, rounding numbers
Cursive Writing
Reading Comprehension: worksheet

Caitlin:
Alphabet book: Letter S
Reading: HOP Tag
Site words
Printing practice
Science: Plants and animals
Biggest/smallest: worksheet
Math: Numbers